Sunday, December 11, 2011

Shutdowns, Meltdowns and John Axford

Continuing with the Shutdown and Meltdown theme, I'll take a look at the National League relievers today. Remember that a pitcher gets credit for a shutdown (SD) whenever he substantially enhances his teams chance of winning a game (sum of Win Probability Added for the game is 6% or better). He is charged with a Meltdown (MD) if he significantly hampers his team's chance of winning (sum of Win Probaility Added for the game is less than -6%).

Using traditional methods, many recognized Brewers reliever John Axford as the best reliever in the National League. After all, he tied for the league lead in saves (46) and led in Save Percentage (95.8%). We know that Saves are not always the best measure of reliever effectiveness. How does Axford rate in terms of Shutdowns and Meltdowns?

Table 1 below shows that Axford had 43 Shutdowns in 74 games for a 58.1 SD%. The top SD% went to Phillies right-hander Ryan Madson (58.3%). Madson failed to make the NL top ten in saves (he had 32) because he did not start the season as the Phillies closer and later missed time with a hand injury.

Table 1: NL Shutdown Percentage Leaders

Player

Team

G

SD

SD%

J.J. Putz

ARI

60

35

58.3

John Axford

MIL

74

43

58.1

Ryan Madson

PHI

62

35

56.5

Tyler Clippard

WSN

72

40

55.6

Jonny Venters

ATL

85

47

55.3

Drew Storen

WSN

73

40

54.8

Francisco Rodriguez

NL

73

37

50.7

Antonio Bastardo

PHI

64

32

50.0

Joel Hanrahan

PIT

70

35

50.0

Francisco Cordero

CIN

68

34

50.0

Brian Wilson

SFG

57

28

49.1

Leo Nunez

FLA

68

33

48.5

Heath Bell

SDP

64

31

48.4

David Hernandez

ARI

74

35

47.3

Eric O'Flaherty

ATL

78

36

46.2

Along with his excellent SD%. Axford was also very good at avoiding MDs. Table 2 tells us that the Brewers closer had 3 MDs in 74 games for a league lowest 4.1% MD%. The biggest surprise on this list might be James Russell of the Cubs. The Chicago left-hander had just 3 MDs in 59 games for a MD% of 5.1%. It's surprising because Russell's more traditional numbers - 4.12 ERA and 1.33 WHIP - were relatively modest. Part of the reason may be that he was not generally used in high-leverage situations.

Table 2: NL Meltdown Percentage Leaders

Player

Team

G

MD

MD%

John Axford

MIL

74

3

4.1

James Russell

CHC

59

3

5.1

Kenley Jansen

LAD

51

3

5.9

Ryan Madson

PHI

62

4

6.5

Jonny Venters

ATL

85

6

7.1

Josh Spence

SDP

40

3

7.5

LaTroy Hawkins

MIL

52

4

7.7

Joe Paterson

ARI

62

5

8.1

Javy Guerra

LAD

47

4

8.5

Mike MacDougal

LAD

69

6

8.7

Francisco Cordero

CIN

68

6

8.8

Eric O'Flaherty

ATL

78

7

9.0

Ramon Ramirez

SFG

66

6

9.1

Sergio Romo

SFG

65

6

9.2

Enerio Del Rosario

HOU

54

5

9.3

Finally, Table 3 combines SD's and MD's to give us SD/MD Ratio. Axford led the National League with a 14.3 (43/3) SD/MD Ratio. So, the sabermetric metrics are in agreement with the traditional statistics that Axford was the league's top reliever. One thing SD/MD Ratio does is the recognize some of the league's most effective non-closers. For examplw, Kenley Jansen of the Dodgers, Eric O'Flaherty of the Braves and Latroy Hawkins of the Brewers all finished in the top ten despite having five saves between them.